So the demand, as per usual and unique by customer, it could range from lit to dark to just building new fiber. So we see there is a really attractive opportunity both now and in the near-term, and certainly over the longer term. And yes, on mid single-digit growth, I think we feel good about our range. I mean, I think it ebbs and flows. We’re a little bit of the low end of that range this year. We talked about the expectation that wireless carrier demand would be down this year coming into the year. So we baked that into the cake, if you will. And it’s probably been a little lower than we expected. And so that’s why you’re seeing us at the low end of that range. But when we look out to next year, we think we’re going to have a little – we think we’re going to have more growth there, and in other places.
But we wouldn’t change that mid single-digit growth outlook. We think that 4% to 6% range is still right.
Gregory Williams: Got it. Thank you. And you wouldn’t change your balance of lease-ups versus anchor builds given the AI build?
Kenny Gunderman: I don’t think so. I mean, that’s a good question, Greg, for sure. We do see an increasing amount of greenfield new build opportunities, I think as a result of AI. And one of the byproducts of this elevated interest rate environment is that customers are generally more understanding of the need for higher costs, but from vendors like us to build. And so more and more of those opportunities I think look attractive even when you bake in our elevated cost of capital. And I do think we’re going to see more and more of those. If you talk to our wholesale sales team, they’ll tell you that there’s large parts of the U.S. national infrastructure that are going to need to be overbuilt and added capacity, including where there’s existing fiber.
And so we do think that’s a growing opportunity over time. But I wouldn’t change our expectation on mix anytime soon because we also have to overlay just our general cost of capital and the balance sheet and those sorts of things. But where we find attractive customer opportunities where they’re going to really lean in and help us finance new build, we absolutely are going to take advantage of those situations.
Gregory Williams: Got it. Thank you.
Kenny Gunderman: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of David Barter from Bank of America. Mr. Barter, your line is now open.
David Barden: So I guess I got three questions, if I could, Kenny, on…
Kenny Gunderman: Hey, David, you’re coming in very, very light. In fact, we can’t hear you right now.
David Barden: Is that any better, Kenny?
Kenny Gunderman: That’s a lot better. Thanks.
David Barden: Okay. Sorry about that. So three questions, if I could. I guess the first one would be with respect to kind of the rebalance of the leasing as a function of the GCI and then the fiber sales kind of maybe coming in a little lighter on this delayed decisions. Would you kind of characterize that as maybe idiosyncratic with respect to a couple of specific customers that are in your pipeline? Or would you say it’s more structural, given the macro backdrop? The second question would be maybe for Paul, just on the – now that we’ve got the $0.15 dividend reiteration from yesterday. Could you remind us kind of to what degree you’re over distributing at the margin, which represents maybe the potential cushion, if you will that exists inside the cash flow structure that we kind of look at today?
And then I guess my last question is Kenny for you, with Tony Thomas’ exit from Windstream and Paul Sunu taking over. Does this mean anything for us as Uniti investors in terms of how that relationship could change or develop differently than it has to date? Thank you.
Kenny Gunderman: Sure. Paul, you want to take the dividend question?
Paul Bullington: Yes. I’ll take the dividend question first Dave, and then turn it back over to Kenny. Yes. So yes, we mentioned a few quarters ago that we would expect given the current dividend level of $0.15 per quarter, we would expect to be over distributing above the 90% minimum requirement for distributions. Tune about $100 million to $150 million through 2025. So now we’re here at the end of 2023, so I think that number is still a good number, but you’re probably looking at, now it’s closer to $100 million kind of going forward through 2024, 2025.
David Barden: Got it.
Kenny Gunderman: David on your question about the mix shift between Uniti Leasing and Uniti Fiber. I think it’s a combination of things. It’s certainly – certain customer specific to customers. So for example, the GCI revenue being higher is certainly a result of Windstream being able to use more of the GCI earlier in the year. And so that’s clearly customer-driven and we’re very happy about that. By the way, we’d love to see that build getting done sooner rather than later. We also have very specific customer decisions happening throughout our wholesale portfolio all the time. We see it on a regular basis. Customers are – they ask for an RFP and it’s got to be done today, and it’s got it be done, lit this week. And then you hear from them a couple of weeks later and no, no this is now a 2024 plan or even a 2025 plan.
So it just ebbs and flows based upon network planning of customers whatever their capital allocation situation might be. And I think that’s always been the case of among wholesale customers, and I think it will continue to be the case going forward. And so it’s very hard to call those decisions anything other than customer specific. Occasionally you see a few of the customers like the wireless carriers moving in packs like I think they are this year, but even that is not something that happens every year. But that said, I do think there’s – we do think there’s some macro backdrop impacts, especially probably on the enterprise side. We just have more customers there. Obviously there continues to be economic uncertainty inflation, it continues to be elevated despite it coming down.
